{"id":31593,"date":"2020-03-16T15:36:15","date_gmt":"2020-03-16T22:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/csws.uoregon.edu\/?p=31593"},"modified":"2020-03-16T15:50:56","modified_gmt":"2020-03-16T22:50:56","slug":"peters-grant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/csws-archive.uoregon.edu\/peters-grant\/","title":{"rendered":"Peters receives NSF Rapid Response grant for coronavirus study"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Editor’s note: This story originally appeared in Around the O. Ellen Peters is a CSWS faculty affiliate.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since COVID-19 first surfaced in December in China, the disease has spread rapidly around the globe, sickening nearly 100,000 people, killing more than 3,000 and rocking world markets as governments struggle to contain its reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that emerging global health threat, Ellen Peters and colleagues in the School of Journalism and Communication<\/a> and Department of Psychology<\/a>\n saw an opportunity to learn about how people perceive risk around the \nnew coronavirus that causes the COVID-19 illness and how that affects \ntheir decision-making, which in turn may help policy-makers better \ncommunicate around the crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ellen Peters<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Peters, director of the school\u2019s Center for Science Communication Research<\/a>,\n said most studies examining risk perception either ask people to \nrespond to a hypothetical situation or interview people six months after\n a crisis, asking them to think back on what they were feeling as it \nhappened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn this case, we\u2019re in the middle of it,\u201d she said. \u201cWe can watch as this unfolds over time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peters\n applied for a $187,351 grant from the National Science Foundation, \nwhich has recommended her study be funded. It will be several weeks \nbefore final, formal approval is granted, but Peters has already begun \ngathering data, hiring a panel of 1,300 respondents who will answer \nsurvey questions five times over the next five months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea is\n to study how people perceive and react to the crisis, what information \nthey pay attention to, who they trust and who they don\u2019t, and how the \ncrisis affects future plans, choices of preventive and treatment options\n and support for policy options, Peters said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is in our best \ninterest to know better how to handle these global crises,\u201d she said, \n\u201cand a lot of it has to do with people\u2019s emotional reactions, because \nthose emotional reactions cause amplification of risk across multiple \nareas. Part of that is real things are happening \u2014 maybe you physically \ncan\u2019t get supplies \u2014 but part of it is fear-based.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRisks can get amplified emotionally and socially. That\u2019s what we\u2019re trying to understand more about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael\n Silverstein, a graduate student in psychology who works with Peters, \nsuggested the idea of a study of perceived risk around the new \ncoronavirus on Feb. 6. Peters thought it was a great idea and knew there\n was an avenue for quickly getting funding for such a study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peters,\n Silverstein and senior research associate Brittany Shoots-Reinhard \nwrote the proposal and submitted it to the NSF\u2019s Grants for Rapid \nResponse Research program at 5 p.m. Feb. 10. NSF recommended the project\n be funded the next morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peters started collecting data Feb. \n17, hiring a panel of 1,300 respondents through Amazon Mechanical Turk, \npart of Amazon Web Services in which online workers are paid to do \nvarious tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was time-critical that we get a baseline before\n people were too, too concerned about it, because we want to see what \nhappens as things change in the United States and change around the \nworld,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, Peters and colleagues will analyze media content around the time of their surveys, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\n closed the first round of surveys after the Centers for Disease Control\n and Prevention told Americans to prepare for a COVID-19 outbreak in \nlate February. That first round of answers will serve as a baseline for \npeople\u2019s emotional reactions and risk perceptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

COVID-19 is the name of the illness caused by the new coronavirus, which is known as SARS-CoV-2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peters\n hopes the study will reveal how people\u2019s emotional reactions influence \ntheir risk perceptions and the kind of behaviors they would take and \nwhat kind of government polices they would support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re \ninterested in how that plays out over time, side-by-side with how the \nmedia is reporting on the coronavirus,\u201d she said. \u201cPart of what we\u2019ll be\n looking at is, who do people trust will take care of this? And then \npotentially we\u2019ll think about communication messages that test expert \nsources of information.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results may also provide guidance to policy-makers on the best way to communicate in a global health crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n ultimate goal, she said, is to learn \u201chow do we best communicate with \npeople so they take precautions that will help slow the spread of \ndisease.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014By Tim Christie, University Communications<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note: This story originally appeared in Around the O. Ellen Peters is a CSWS faculty affiliate. Since COVID-19 first surfaced in December in China, the disease has spread rapidly around the globe, sickening nearly 100,000 people, killing more than…<\/p>\n

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